15 August 2005
updated 15 December 2007

Clearing the Print Queue in Windows

The printer is one of the slowest devices in a computer system. If you had to wait for it to print your document before you could resume writing, you would quickly go back to using a typewriter. To eliminate the delay, Windows reserves a portion of memory for something called a “print queue” (or spooler). The queue works on a first-in first-out basis. You can continue to use the computer and send jobs to the spooler as it feeds a steady stream of data to the printer.

Print queues are nice, except when something happens in the printer to cause it to stop functioning. Sometimes it is just a paper jam and sometimes it is a bit more serious. If you need to cancel the jobs in the print queue, you can simply double-click the printer icon (in the system tray down by the clock) and open the print queue. Depending upon the length of your document and how many documents are waiting to print, the printer icon may appear briefly or for a sustained period. (Note: This would be a good time to remove the paper from the printer before continuing.) If the icon is not there, you can manually open the queue.

Open the Print Queue

• Windows 98 - click Start, Settings, Printers
• Windows XP - click Start, Printers and Faxes
                       or click Start, Control Panel, Printers and Faxes
• Windows Vista - Start, Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Printers

Double-click to open the appropriate printer's queue. The Print dialog box will open. Here you will see a list of all of the jobs waiting to print, along with the status of each job. The first print job is at the top of the list.

To cancel a document in the list, right-click it and select Cancel Printing. Most often, it is better to cancel all of the jobs and then resend the documents to the printer.

Cancel All Documents

• Windows 98 - click Printer on the menu, select “Purge Print Documents”
• Windows XP - click Printer on the menu, select “Cancel All Documents”
• Windows Vista - click Printer on the menu, select “Cancel All Documents”

Please note that you must have Administrative rights in Windows XP and Vista to cancel print jobs. If you are the only user, you automatically have administrative rights. If you are on a multi-user computer, you must be an administrator. If are on a network and get a message saying that you do not have Administrative rights, find someone who does.

Under normal circumstances, printing documents are cancelled and will disappear from the queue. If one or more do not disappear, shutdown the computer and restart. When shutting down, you may get a message warning you that your print jobs will be lost if you continue. Tell Windows to shutdown anyway. When you restart, Windows may tell you that you have print jobs waiting. Tell Windows to delete them.

Before you resume work, open the Print Queue from the Start menu. You should find the queue empty. If you are using Windows XP or Windows Vista and the queue is not empty, you will be unable to print. Before trashing your computer, you can try to clear the queue using a secret Windows command.

Click Start, Run, and type “Net Stop Spooler” (without the quotes). Then press Enter. Shutdown the computer and restart. The print jobs should be removed. If they are not, shut down the computer again, take a deep breath, and then go for a long walk. The queue should be clear when you return. Note that you must restart the computer for your printers to resume normal operation.